


picking, picking, scratching

by literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Dermatillomania, Gen, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 19:02:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4972702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte/pseuds/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Today he is thirty-nine years old.</p>
            </blockquote>





	picking, picking, scratching

On the morning of his ninth birthday, Jack had already been awake for several hours, curled up on the floor with the sound of his grandma's angry voice still ringing in his ears. The skin on the top of his shoulders and the bridge of his nose were an angrier red, and they hurt when he poked and prodded at them but he couldn't control himself. In a couple days, the skin started to peel and he had dirt, dead skin, and probably blood under his fingernails. Pandora isn't a clean place, isn't merciful to children, and he always had a sunburn and a scab or two but he never stopped picking, picking, scratching.

Jack remembers that birthday specifically because today he is thirty-nine years old. Actually, he's been thirty-nine years old for hours now. He feels older than that. He feels more tired than someone who got half a decent night's sleep on a bed worth more than his secretary's life savings. Tomorrow he thinks he will put five bullets in his secretary's brain - maybe one in his leg, first, just to watch him hop around screaming.

He nicks the palm of his hand while unfolding the switchblade and watches himself bleed with some dull fascination. He goes to wash it off in the sink but then he puts the open wound to his mouth, and licks the beads of blood off like a dog. It stings.

He takes the switchblade to the line where skin meets silicone and steadily drags it under the seam, until he reaches the first clasp and has to carve it out of his face. The pain is sharp, sharp as the knife he digs into the meat of his chin. He focuses on keeping his hands from shaking as he unfastens the other two clasps and snips the last strings of skin connecting him to the mask.

The V-shaped brand is an old, dark blue scar made of dead tissue that hasn't seen the sun in years. One eye blinks back at him in the mirror; the other, a vaguely reddish white, rolls uselessly in its socket.

He starts at the top of the curve. He keeps his hand steady, refusing to let it shake as he opens up the edges of the scar.

It stings.


End file.
